1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera and a printing apparatus for use in printing with trimming.
2. Related Background Art
There is already known, for example as disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,678,299, a trimming camera adapted for use in enlarging part of a photographed frame in a printing operation, thereby providing a photograph with an effect as if lens zooming was performed in the photographing. In such camera, a desired trimming area is designated in the view finder prior to the photographing operation, and information on such trimming area is recorded on the photographic film in the photographing operation. In the printing operation, an automatic printing system reads the information recorded on the film and prints a photograph with trimming as desired by the photographer.
Such trimming camera is designed to achieve an effect equivalent to lens zooming in photographing, by enlarging a part of the image frame on the film, but the magnification of such enlargement is subject to limitation by image quality. This limitation is generally determined by the acceptable level of granularity of the enlarged photograph.
In relation to such limitation by image quality, there is already known a trimming camera capable of taking the sensitivity of the film into consideration, but in a trimming camera not provided with such, capability, the image magnification in trimming is either limited to a constant value regardless of the printed size of the photograph, or is not at all limited so that the trimming area is arbitrarily selectable by the photographer.
Moreover, the final print size of the photograph is widely variable, and, a photograph may even contain plural frames therein like a small album. A constant trimming magnification means that the degree of enlargement must be kept low, without fully exploiting the possibility of further enlargement. On the other hand, a trimming magnification arbitrarily selectable by the photographer without any limitation may result in an unexpectedly coarse granularity of the finished photograph.
The image quality of a photograph is also influenced by the ISO sensitivity of the photographic film, and becomes generally worse as the ISO sensitivity increases. Consequently, in case of obtaining trimmed photographs with films of different ISO sensitivities, photographs of adequate image quality can be obtained by suitably varying the trimming magnification according to the ISO sensitivity.